La Notte

Right where the road turns away from the boardwalk and into the country there's an old Belle Epoque style villa, slightly elevated above the surrounding brick walls and overgrown by emerald ivy. Nobody seems to live there unless they spend their days hiding in the dark behind the flaked wooden shutters.

At nights we make up stories together, events that could have transpired through the centuries, in and around the garden, inside the emptied rooms. Henry makes them real, in his mind they all happened and he tells them like truths when he speaks to people we meet at nearby restaurants and bars.

We're going back to Paris on Thursday, along with the lies and uncertainty. They kill us and keep us alive all at once, I don't even know what happened to his parents. Some day I'm going to tell him everything he needs to know about me, all the secrets I've kept hidden like stolen treasures. There isn't a bone in my body that thinks he won't understand.